Mad for the Hatter
by MadForTheHatter
Summary: Alice goes back to Wonderland to find that she has caught feelings for her old friend, the mad hatter.
I couldn't wait for tea with the whole gang. I slowly walked over to the big long table and saw Hare twitching uncontrollably like he always did. I felt bad for him, I always wanted to hold him still with my hands.

"A-A-AHHHLLICEE!" Hare screeched and hopped in his seat.

I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his shaking body, "It's so nice to see you all." I glanced over at the end of the table where an empty seat stood. "Where's Hatter?"

"He'll be here soon, Alice." Hare said, ears twitching back and forth. I suddenly felt arms wrap around me from behind. I gasped.

"Hatter. . ." I said turning around and starring into huge green eyes laying under wispy orange eyebrows. Hatter pulled me to his chest, orange hair tickling my cheek.

"Welcome home, Alice." he whispered.

"It's so great to see you." I said. he pulled away and walked over to his seat at the end of the table. I sat down between him and Dormouse.

We all started talking about our previous adventures from years ago, refreshing the details of things that had slipped my mind. I reached over to the pot for more tea, as did Hatter. Our hands touched slightly for a split second and my entire face went red. I couldn't for the life of me think why I blushed so badly. Hatter looked over at me through his thick eyebrows and smiled.

It started getting late and a bit dark and I had about 45 minutes to walk to get back to the White Queens palace so I told everyone that I was going to have to get going.

"You don't really think I'm going to let you walk home in dim light all by yourself, now do you?" Hatter said.

"Oh Hatter, you really don't need to-" Hatter cut me off by placing a finger to my lips.

"Oh Alice, yes I do." he said with a grin.

We started walking and chatting. He would randomly say crazy, mad walking he bent over and picked up a small twig.

"Don't mess with me! I've got a . . . a stick." He said, grinning, ear to ear. I smiled back at him and leaned down to pick up my own stick.

"On guard!" I yelled as I lunged at him with my stick. So we began stick fighting right there in the middle of the woods.

In the middle of out stick fight hatter cheated and grabbed my arm quickly and pulled me around to his chest with his arm around me and the stick pointed into my throat.

"Does this beautiful stick fighting foe of mine now surrender?" He asked jokingly.

"Oh, yes! I surrender. . .you nasty little cheater, you!" I said. Hatter released me.

"We should have some races on our way to the palace to make the trip go faster." He said with excitement in his eyes.

"You want our journey to go by faster?" I asked. I loved spending time with the Hatter so it would be sad to me if the time had to go by any more quickly.

"I didn't say that now did I?" He said, "I'll race you to that bare tree over there, you see it?" I nodded and took a readying stance next to him. "Ready, set, go!" he yelled, and began sprinting ahead with one large bound at a time. I ran also, but much slower. I ran this way and that trying not to run into stumps and large rocks . . .but those didn't matter that much because i tripped over a fallen branch anyways and landed painfully hard on the ground.

"Ugg!" I grunted. I tried standing up but my ankle hurt to bad and a fell back down to the earth. "Hatter! Hatter, please help me!" I yelled to him. Hatter turned quickly around and seeing me on the ground the area around his eyes turned dark blue and his hair wilted.

"Alice!" He yelled running faster than I had ever seen a person run. "Alice, oh Alice. You are badly hurt. And it's my fault! I'm mad. . . . so mad at myself for this." His eyes scanned up and down my dirtied clothes and legs. He took my ankle in his hands and I winced and pulled my ankle away. "Oh no, we must get to the Queen quickly now." He carefully helped me to my feet and draped my arm around his shoulders.

"Hatter, you shouldn't feel so badly about this." I said, "All you wanted was to have a little fun and clumsy me had to trip and get myself hurt." He didn't look at me. He just stared blankly ahead.

"It's my fault though, I requested that we race and if I hadn't you wouldn't have tripped so badly and gotten so badly hurt. Also. . to top things off, I seem to have gotten us dreadfully lost."

He said looking sideways at me guiltily.

"Really? How?" I asked, worried.

"I don't know. But you obviously didn't notice that it's been about an hour and a half since we left. I'm truly sorry." He said, the underside of his eyes getting darker.

"Well If we are really lost we should just find a place to sleep for the night. It is getting late and I'm really tired anyways." He nodded and so we looked around for a while, all the time with me stuck to his hip as he let me lean most of my weight onto him. Soon we found a nice, clean, green bed of comfy moss that we could comfortably lay on and sleep on that night.

He slowly took my back with his hand and held me while he gradually lay me down on a nice patch of moss. Once I was fully on the ground he still had his arms around me protectively. He looked me deep in the eyes. His face was inches from mine and I could feel his breath on my lips and tongue, I know the breath on my tongue wasn't mine because I had stopped breathing the moment I noticed how close his face was to mine. Just when I thought out faces couldn't get any closer he leaned even closer to me and grazed his mouth on my top lip. I believe my heart stopped after that because he asked me if I was okay.

"Yes, yes, I'm great. Uhm, if you wouldn't mind. . . do it again." I had lost my mind I was sure. I had gone mad from being to close to the Mad Hatter. Slowly he grazed his lips on my top lip again but this time his lips were parted slightly. I felt my heart start up again and very quickly at that. I leaned into him and kissed him hard and fully on his mouth. I parted my lips slightly and took a daring step and inserted the tip of my tongue into his mouth. I opened my eyelids slightly to see his hair going wild above my head. His hair was on fire it seemed. So vibrant and lively. I closed my eyes again and focused on the dance our tongues were engaged in. They were teasing each other, touching then not touching twirling around in circles and then retracting. They couldn't decide if they wanted to dance or not. Hatter started squirming a little bit hovering above me. I pulled away from the kiss and Hatter gasped.

"I. . .I should probably go to sleep now. We should get up early tomorrow to go find the palace." He said, shakily standing slowly. I sat up quickly and grabbed his collar and pulled him in just once more and smothered his mouth in a deep goodnight kiss.

The next morning I woke up, my eyes slowly got used to the orange glow of the morning sky. I looked around me and saw Hatter sitting down a few feet from me. He was making what seemed like a walking stick. I smiled and Hatter turned his glance to me. His face had a guilty expression on it.

"What's wrong?" I asked, frowning. I crawled as best I could over to his side.

"Last night, that was a mistake. When you kissed me, I enjoyed the sensation, but it shouldn't be like that between me and you." He said shaking slightly.

"Why? I really like you hatter, I always have." I said, placing a hand on the Hatters shoulder.

Hatters eyes glanced down at my hand and stopped carving the walking stick.

"Uhh, Yeah, I like you too but I've known you since you were a young child. Don't you believe that is a tiny bit strange." He said, eyes still focused on my hand.

"Well, when you say it like that it does sound strange, but I am grown now. Look at me," I said. Hatter shifted his gaze onto my face, "I'm not a little girl any more, you should know that." I slowly lifted my hand to his cheek. I felt him shiver and breath in as he closed his eyes.

"I do know that. But, you still seem so innocent and I don't want to take that innocence away from you." He said slowly opening his eyes and laying his sight on my lips. Our mouths were only an inch or two away from each other at this point and so I took the same leap I had the night before. I leaned in the two inches and placed my lips on the top of his mouth kissing him softly. I felt his bottom lip move up to meet with mine for a quick moment. I moved my hand that was placed on his cheek behind his head and my other hand on his chest. I pushed him back carefully, until his back was on the mossed flooring of the forest. I kissed him over and over on his mouth. I felt his heart beat faster and faster under my hand.

Hatter moved his hands up to my waist and grabbed on to my hips with his long, dye stained fingers.


End file.
